Life's Rebirth & Conversion

"The lessons of fragility, finitude, and vulnerability bring us to the threshold of a new vision: they foster an ethos of life that calls for the engagement of intelligence and the courage of moral conversion. To learn a lesson is to become humble; it means to change, searching for resources of meaning hitherto untapped, perhaps disavowed. To learn a lesson is to become mindful, once more, of the goodness of life that offers itself to us, releasing an energy that runs even deeper than the unavoidable experience of loss, that need to be elaborated and integrated in the meaning of our existence.”

 

"HUMANA COMMUNITAS IN THE AGE OF PANDEMIC” by Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City, July 22, 2020.

Evangelize w/ Holy Spirit

"We are called to evangelize and to be evangelized, but it is always the grace of the Holy Spirit that fuels the conversion... God is present in every life, whether we recognize it or not. He is present in those who are in our parishes and those who are not, those who pray with us and those who do not, those who think as we do and those who do not. In all our interactions with others, we can bring Christ to them, but we can also acknowledge Jesus, who already dwells in their hearts and who is a gift to us too. It is a gift of giving and receiving. But, to do this, we need to make sure that we are growing in our friendship with Jesus Christ and his Body, the Church" 

(Book: Start with Jesus by Julianne Stanz).

Test of Three

In Ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said:

“Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

 “Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Test of Three.”

 “Test of Three?”, the acquaintance asked.

 “That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my student let’s take a moment to test what you’re going to say. The first test is Truth. Are you absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

 “No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about It.”

 “All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second test; the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”

 “No, on the contrary...,” the acquaintance replied.

 “So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

 The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

 Socrates continued. “You may still pass though, because there is a third test - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”

 

“No, not really.”

 “Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why should you tell it to me at all?”